Column
By Zack Heydorn · August 11, 2026
Damn, the second to last vacation of the year is in the books. One more left?! 2026 is moving way too fast.
Minnesota was fantastic. Fishing was excellent and I was able to secure something called a Dogfish. 30 inches long and ugly as sin.
It was the first time anyone has seen that fish in the lake we were on in nearly 70 years. Skill? Luck? Doesn’t matter.
Now, I’m back and had plenty of wrestling to catch up on. SmackDown, AEW Collision, WWE Raw, NXT, and a Grand Slam edition AEW Dynamite. Exhale.
What the hell happened??
-Asking this question every single week is getting tiresome. I know it’s cool to argue that wrestling doesn’t need to have good guys and bad guys, but it does. Look, Reigns cut a heck of a championship victory promo this week after his win over Seth Rollins at SummerSlam. Reigns was Reigns. Intense, confident, and well … kind of an asshole. He was one to LA Knight and then again to his fellow Bloodline members — even though he said he’d be different than the last time they galavanted around WWE together as a faction. It’s hard to get behind a Reigns character that’s acting that way and then ALSO applauding a vicious assault on Royce Keys by Jacob Fatu. Same thing with LA Knight. It’s hard to get behind his character — who is trying to take Reigns down — while Reigns isn’t defined as a guy the crowd should want to see lose the championship. The result is a cold feud and a cold story that nobody is truly invested in. WWE needs to have that in anything involving a top guy like Reigns.
-IF Brock Lesnar is really retired — IF — WWE did a nice job honoring his career in the ring. The videos showcased a truly special talent and that’s what Brock Lesnar was.
-Welcome back, Big Cass. Someone had to be fed to him on night one. That someone was Je’Von Evans. A good choice. First, Evans got a clean win over Ethan Page prior to the Cass attack. If you read the last Raw column, guys like Evans need wins. Second, Evans now has his most high-profile feud yet sitting right in front of him. Evans and Cass can have a strong little feud together and Evans will make Cass look like a million bucks.
-Babyface Becky Lynch is back. Finally, right? This is good for Raw. The WWE audiences like Lynch. The longer she’s a top star, the less she’s going to get real heat as a heel. Just a legacy act. Now, she can float all around the women’s division. First up is Liv Morgan and that’s a big match right out of the gate.
-Lynch vs. Morgan? Stephanie Vaquer may have a thing or two to say about that. Vaquer back in fold on Raw is also tremendous for the show. They needed babyface depth in the women’s division and with Vaquer and Lynch they have it. Plus, Vaquer vs. Lynch? That’s a money match.
-An A+ promo for Oba Femi following his Hell in a Cell win over Brock Lesnar at SummerSlam. Femi needed to come across as strong, confident, likable, but also respectful of Lesnar. Femi was all of those things. He continues to shine when he needs to. How Triple H keeps Oba Femi out of the world title picture until WrestleMania next year is beyond me. It’s a big risk.
-At least Bron Breakker squashed Joe Hendry. Anything less than a total squash in the match would have led to huge questions about Breakker. The real story for Breakker was the confrontation with Oba Femi. For Breakker, on one hand you’re thinking, “awesome, I’m fixing to work with a top guy on the show.” The other hand? “Damn, can this feud wait a year? I can and should be a hotter talent that is more of an equal to Femi.” Timing is everything. This is a huge match for WWE, but not if they play the card too soon.
-Is Royce Keys in trouble or something? It felt like the attack by Jacob Fatu wrote him off television for at least a little bit. The match was fine, but I’ll say it again — the lack of definition around The Bloodline is hurting all of their angles and stories, including this one.
-Alright, let’s move to NXT. The oddball team of Jaida Parker and Thea Hail got a victory. It’s formulaic booking, but Hail and Parker may be able to pull it off. Time will tell.
-An awesome promo segment with Tony D’Angelo, Grayson Waller, and Cruz Montana. Kind of a defining segment in terms of showcasing who the top guys are on the show. Waller adds an important dynamic to this mix. “The promo” he cut on the company grabbed attention and it helps him come across as one of the biggest stars on the show.
-Yeah, the are going to regret taking the tag titles off of Vanity Project. That’s a real tag team and because of how skilled they are, ideally, you’d get a real babyface team to try and dethrone them. Myles Borne and Tavion Heights are technically babyfaces, but the story they are telling with them will see them broken up and feuding rather than gelling as a well-oiled team. Feels like the tag titles are being used to facilitate a singles program with Heights and Borne rather than be the top prize for the teams of the show.
-NXT Underground was a really fun way to wrap up the Lola Vice and Kendal Grey feud. Both women were able to stay likable even as they competed and the match felt like a true main event. Vice and Grey had a great match. Grey continues to be the main focus of the entire NXT brand. Big lights on her right now.
-Moving over to AEW and a Grand Slam edition of Dynamite … how cool did the venue in Mexico look? AEW made that place feel like a PPV event and the wrestling delivered like it was one.
-I’m typically not a fan of Young Bucks style tags anymore, but their team with Adam Copeland and Christian Cage was a fun watch. The audience loved seeing those guys and the match was elevated because of their energy. The finish was a bit lame. The babyfaces cost themselves the match and they are upcoming opponents at All In. Clockwork.
-Andrade El Idolo is heading to the Casino Gauntlet match at All In and so is MJF. Surprised that they aren’t wrestling in a singles match on that show, but this works better because they can wrestle and fight without having to do it for the silly AEW National Championship.
-MJF cut one of his better promos in recent memory on the show. He didn’t yell very much and he got big-time heat. MJF walking around with the “real” world title is an interesting storyline for Tony Khan to start up. Clearly, it builds to a huge Ospreay vs. MJF match on PPV.
-Kyle Fletcher vs. Mike Bailey was such a treat. An awesome match and of course it was. Not a ton of drama around Fletcher winning, but this was about the match and once again elevated by a highly energetic crowd getting their style of wrestling shot into their veins.
-There are new AEW World Trios Champions. Adam Page and Brodido. Yay? This felt like Tony Khan wanting to do a title a change on this exact show and this was the only place to do it. Those three guys don’t need those belts and The Demand kinda did.
-Will Ospreay vs. Mark Davis was a really good main event that nearly crossed the line of being too violent. Ospreay and Davis walked up to it, but didn’t cross it. The entire storyline with Ospreay is rooted in him finding his edge and violent side, right? That was why The Death Rider pairing happened. This match and his victory in it was an extension of that story.
-Finally … SmackDown. Segment of the week goes to Kevin Owens and CM Punk. The promos between those two is the selling point for this match and they both very much delivered. HOWEVER. We have another babyface vs. babyface deal going on here. I sound like a broken record, but it is what it is. I’ll stop when it stops.
-Just a mess of a situation for Chelsea Green. Green wins the world title to a massive response at SummerSlam and then gets hurt on the SmackDown following it. Brutal. Pro wrestling is a tough business. Fingers crossed that she can get back sooner than later and not have to be stripped of her newly won belt.
What grade do you give the Kevin Owens and CM Punk promo from this week’s episode of SmackDown? Me? A strong B+.
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